Publishing Materials for Iain Sinclair's "The Face on the Fork: A William Burroughs Triptych" (2011)

Binley Woods, England: Beat Scene Press (chapbook, letter, copies, ephemera), 2011.
Envelope: 6.375" x 8.25", from Iain Sinclair to Kevin Ring, dated 23 November 2011.

Postcard: 4" x 5.75", image on recto and hand-written message from Iain Sinclair to Kevin Ring on verso.

Copy Set #1 (Iain Sinclair): 8.5" x 11.75", two photocopied sheets, rectos only, stapled at corner, and folded twice.

Copy Set #2 (William S. Burroughs): 11.75" x 8.25", three photocopied sheets, rectos only, stapled at corner, and folded twice.

Chapbook: 8.25" x 5", 24 leaves, no notations, proof copy, unsigned.

This is a small set of items relating to the publication of Iain Sinclair’s The Face on the Fork: A William Burroughs Triptych, as released as a chapbook in an edition of 125 signed and numbered copies by Kevin Ring’s Beat Scene Press in 2012.

The chapbook itself consists of memoirs (“Dublin.Winter.1962”, “Gozo Winter 1967”, and “Lawrence Kansas Winter 1995), a film script prepared for WDR (TV, Cologne, 1967), and Burroughs’ text for the periodical Albatross (which only exists in a small number of proof copies). [Burroughs’ text was later published in Icarus, issue 46, May 1965, and in this chapbook, and later by Tangerine Press in 2023 as William S. Burroughs’ The Frisco Kid: He Never Returns.]

This mini-archive shown includes a postcard from Iain Sinclair, two sets of photocopied materials, and a proof copy of The Face on the Fork (white covers, unsigned and unnumbered), all in envelope.

The letter from Iain Sinclair to Kevin Ring reads: “23/11/11 / Kevin– / For the proposed Burroughs chapbook. / Here is the Burroughs text from / 1963, Dublin. Which may well / have been the first WSB to be / published in Ireland. / I’d like to do the book in 3 / sections, like a triptych of my / dealings over the years with WSB. / (I’ll send the linking material / and the little film script – and / full explanation next week.) / Text after my visit to WSB’s / in Lawrence, Kansas, in ‘90s. / Iain”

One of the sets of copies is Burroughs’ “Short Piece”, as published in Icarus, issue 46, May 1965.

The other set of copies is in the chapbook as a text embedded in the “Lawrence Kansas Winter 1995” section of Face on the Fork, there noted as a fiction entitled Slow Chocolate Autopsy.

The chapbook of The Face on the Fork is a proof copy in white wraps, no hand-notations.

All items were received together from Beat Scene Press publisher/editor Kevin Ring (Binley Woods, England).